Cheryl Hile, 41, has run a total of 47 marathons — 34 of them since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) nine years ago.

But, she insists, “I’m just a regular person. Really.”

Hile, a contracts and grants administrator in the computer science and engineering department at the University of California in San Diego, wasn’t particularly athletic as a child. In fact, she remembers failing the Presidential Physical Fitness Test in fifth grade.

“I couldn’t do a single chin-up,” she says. “I was thrown off the school badminton team, wasn’t able to swim and breathe simultaneously, and couldn’t run a mile in under 10 minutes.”

But in 2000, at age 26, Hile got the running bug after watching her husband, Brian, come home from 5K and 10K races feeling exhausted but euphoric.

“I had this twisted desire to feel the same soreness,” says Hile. “And I wanted to feel the same sense of accomplishment.”

Jumping Into the Deep End

Not one to dip quietly into a new activity, Hile signed up for a marathon before completing her first training session. Some might call that a little impulsive, but Hile was sure this was what she wanted to do.

Shortly after her first run, however, she broke down. “How on earth am I going to run 26.2 miles?” she sobbed.

With a good deal of grit and determination, Hile ran her first marathon in October 2000 in Toronto, the city of her birth. “It seemed strangely appropriate that I should run my first marathon where I learned to walk,” she says.

She was hooked and, with a dozen more marathons under her belt, Hile looked forward to a lifetime of running. She wouldn’t be concerned with winning or breaking records necessarily, but she would be able to share something outside of work with Brian and feel the rush of trying to beat her personal best — 4 hours and 13 minutes, set in January 2006 in Phoenix, Arizona — each time.

“I never set out to become a marathon runner,” she says. “But now I couldn’t imagine my life without it.”

MS Diagnosis Throws a Monkey Wrench Into Her Plans

But disaster, or what looked like it, struck in October 2006, when Hile was told by her doctor that the vertigo she’d been experiencing, and the numbness she’d felt in her arms for a couple of years, was multiple sclerosis. She was devastated.

“I remember thinking I couldn’t believe my own body was destroying me,” Hile says. “I really felt this disease had taken a huge piece of me.”

It took about eight months for the diagnosis to settle in, but then “I eventually began running again and slowly built up my distances,” she says.

In 2007, Hile ran the New York City Marathon, a dream come true. But, she says, “I struggled the whole way. I was tripping up everywhere and remember 13 occasions when I very nearly had a serious fall.”

Hile learned she had foot drop, a complication of MS that interferes with the ability to lift up the front of your foot. An orthotist customized a carbon-fiber ankle-foot orthosis for her, which has enabled Hile to continue running.

A New Goal: Running a Marathon On All 7 Continents

Hile’s MS symptoms have progressed, and she admits that each marathon is a little tougher than the last. Her times have slowed somewhat, from her post-MS PR of 4:26, set in January 2014, to times in the 4:40 range.

Brian now runs all of Hile’s marathons along with her, serving as her support system if her MS causes trouble. For example, says Hile, “Sometimes my right hand and arm get so weak that I can't grip a water bottle or hold my energy gels, or my right leg gets so heavy that I may need support if I fall. I haven’t fallen yet with my ankle-foot orthosis, but I've come close.”

But, says Hile, she feels great and is definitely more aware of her health and fitness now than she was pre-diagnosis.

Hile strongly believes the combination of exercise, good nutrition (she avoids processed foods and loads up on vegetables), and having something to work at and look forward to all help to keep her symptoms in check.

“I want to do what I can to remain active,” she says. “I don’t want to sit around and wait for a cure.”

In 2015, Hile set a new goal of becoming the first person with MS to run seven marathons on seven continents in 12 months. She is now fundraising to help cover both her and Brian’s travel expenses for this adventure, and to support the work of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

She plans to start with a marathon in Cape Town, South Africa, in September 2016.

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